I Ended up in Portugal Because of a Letter and a Check From My Dead Aunt Who I Never Really Knew

Last May, my aunt died. I didn’t really know her that well. When I was a kid, younger than 10, I remember she came and stayed at the duplex where my family used to live.

This was in the early 90s, and the twins (Lisa and Lori) showed up and walked in like something straight out of Melrose Place with their big curly hair and dark eyeshadow and bright lipstick. I suppose that reference also comes from the fact that they did actually come to visit their hometown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from LA, where they were living, the only place I had ever known them to live. My most vivid memory from that week was when I was sitting on the toilet with the top down watching Lori get ready to go out. She was putting on makeup and using the curling iron and spraying massive amounts of hairspray into her big hair. Then she asked me if I wanted her to do my hair. When I was little, I loved when people played with my hair (and to be honest, this trait hasn’t gone away—I STILL love when people play with my hair). I remember looking at her thinking she was so cool and so pretty as she carefully brushed and curled and sprayed my hair just like hers. Well, not just like hers, because at that time, I had stick straight hair. She must have been in her early 20s then. Lisa and Lori, the twins, the babies of the family with 10 older siblings, my mom being one of them.

The next time I saw Lori was at my grandma’s funeral in 2013. She didn’t look as cool as she used to; her hair wasn’t big anymore, and her face looked so tired. But she had this wildness about her that hadn’t gone away. I had a brief flashback when I saw her in that weird funeral hall, to that moment in the bathroom we shared. I didn’t bring it up. I wonder if she would have remembered.

In between those years of the bathroom and the funeral, the only connection I had with her was through Facebook. She was always commenting on my posts and photos, telling me how much she loved me. She did this with all the other cousins too, all of us scattered around the US, and me wherever I was, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Oregon. I found out through a bit of inference and finally asking my mom that she was a frequent meth user. She was fine, considering, but it became really clear to me why she was spending all this time on Facebook telling her nieces and nephews how much she loved us though she barely knew us. Some of the other cousins blocked her because it was a lot of awkward commenting, but I never did. I didn’t mind so much I guess. Just a crazy long lost aunt telling me I’m pretty and how proud she is of me for being such a free spirit.

I got a $500 check in the mail last May after she died. She had cancer that could have been treated. There must have been some kind of guilt she felt which kept her from the doctor. The cancer took over her insides, then her outsides. Meth probably makes a person pretty out of touch with their body and what’s going on with it, so I imagine she didn’t know. Or maybe she had a feeling and just didn’t want to deal with it. If you don’t go to the doctor, no one can tell you there’s something wrong. Either way, a person on meth doesn't want to go to the doctor.

The check was accompanied by a letter explaining that the money should be used for something amazing. Not for bills. Not for rent. Not for clothes. Wild Aunt Lori.

This picture was taken in May, 2016 in Miramar, a little seaside village in Portugal. I’m standing on an old Pagan chapel that has been there at the edge of the Atlantic, literally in the water when the tide rises, for hundred of years. Capela Do Senhor Da Pedra, Chapel of the Lord of Stone, Chapel in the Sea.

You know how you go to see a beautiful thing, and because it’s so beautiful, there are so many people around that want to see it too, and then some of the magic of that beautiful thing vanishes because of the crowd? When Omar and I got to Miramar, it was raining, but the sun came out around sunset hour, and so we walked to the beach to that chapel, and no one was there. The rain must have kept them away, but now the sun was out, and we were alone, climbing this 17th century mystical place of worship that has somehow withstood the crashing and crashing and storms and currents of the brutal Atlantic. Then there was me, leaning on that cross in the fire orange light of the dropping sun reflecting over the sand and the chapel and the water.

I had been wanting to go to Portugal for a long time, so I took Omar, and we spent a week there. We went to Lisbon, took a ride-share up the coast to that little town Miramar, and then spent the last days in Porto. We ate so much fish and shrimp. So much.

I remember we we walking around Lisbon, and this place, not even a bar, was giving away tastes of this traditional Portuguese liqueur called ginjinha. I thought it was going to be like Port, but it wasn’t at all. It tasted like fermented cherries. I could have bought a glass of it, but for the price of 3 glasses, they were selling the whole bottle. So me, knowing me, of course I bought the bottle. Lori said I should have an amazing time with that money. Omar and I spent the afternoon walking the cobbled streets of Lisbon, up and down massive alley stairways cut into the hills, drinking that sweet winey beverage.

That’s the story of these photos, and also my tribute to my aunt Lori, who I never really knew, and who I’ll never forget.